Book excerpt: The Essence of Managing Henry Mintzberg appreciates that managers are busy people. So he has taken his classic book Managing, done some updating, and distilled its essence into a lean 176 pages of text. The essence of the book remains the same: what Mintzberg learned from observing twenty-nine managers in settings ranging from a refugee camp to a symphony orchestra. Simply Managing considers the intense dynamics of this job as well as its inescapable conundrums, for example: • How is anyone supposed to think, let alone think ahead, in this frenetic job? • Are leaders really more important than managers? • Where has all the judgment gone? • Is email destroying management practice? • How can managers connect when their job disconnects them from what they are managing? If you read only one book about managing, this should be it!